Warning: This article contains spoilers from The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon — The Book of Carol episode 4. Sunday’s “La Paradis Pour Toi” episode of Daryl Dixon was, as the French would say, doux-amer: Bittersweet. At long last, best friends Daryl (Norman Reedus) and Carol (Melissa McBride) reunited at the Nest after she hitched a ride with Genet (Anne Charrier), who injected her army of Guerrier with a serum that turned the soldiers into amped-up zombies she then let loose onto the abbey. That was the good part.
While Genet’s Pouvoir sought to crush Union de l’Espoir‘s “tyranny of false hope” by killing their savior, Laurent (Louis Puech Scigliuzzi), Union leader Losang (Joel de la Fuente) attempted to restore his flock’s wavering faith by having the boy bitten by a walker as proof of his immunity. But Fallou (Eriq Ebouaney) helped Laurent escape the Nest, so when Losang failed to get Isabelle (Clémence Poésy) to give up her nephew’s location, he stabbed her in the stomach and left her to die as the hungry ones invaded Mont-Saint-Michel.
Carol saved Isabelle from being bitten before finding Daryl and bringing him to the woman who said Je t’aime — “I love you” — after sealing their blossoming relationship with a kiss just last episode. But it was too late. Isabelle succumbed to her injuries and, with her dying breath, told Daryl to take care of Laurent. “I can see them. The fireflies,” she said of the lightning bugs that Daryl told her she’d find when she went home with him to America. “They’re so beautiful.”
It was a gut-wrenching end for Isabelle, who died protecting Laurent — keeping her promise to her sister.
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“For the moment when Isabelle dies, I think what we wanted was great dignity, intelligence, strength, and a really moving ending to the character,” showrunner and episode co-writer David Zabel explained on AMC+’s The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon – The Book of Carol Episode Insider. “Isabelle’s death hits hard because she’s touched something within [Daryl] that we haven’t seen before, and it’s because she’s so different from him. And it’s also because she’s tied into this boy that he loves, and now he has to make sure, after that, not to let the same thing happen with Laurent.”
Added Poésy, “It’s a world where I guess you’re very used to saying goodbye. I think there’s an acceptance. I don’t think she’s fighting it. I think she knows she can’t.”
“It’s been so nice, season two,” she continued. “It’s been such a treat to take Isabelle a bit further, and knowing that we were taking these two characters on a journey and exploring their relationship a bit more was just the greatest luxury.”
Isabelle wasn’t the only one to met their end this episode. After Daryl and Carol escaped to the French countryside, kind strangers Didi (Marie-Christine Adam) and Theo (François-Éric Gendron) gave them shelter. But when Genet tracked Daryl and Carol to the village, it was Carol who shot Genet with a tranquilizer gun and a dose of the amper serum. Genet went into violent convulsions as her eyes turned black and burst out of her head — dying a gory and gruesome death.
“The trick with Genet is she has been a tremendous villain, so her death has to live up to the glory of her evil-doings,” said series executive producer and special makeup effects artist Greg Nicotero. “We really wanted her death to be just completely horrific, painful, gut-wrenching.”
“She really did believe she was doing the right thing for the community. Finding order, and that’s it, it’s gone,” added Charrier. “It’s a great death. It was the only way she could die: from the monsters she created. She’s going to be one of them. It’s a complete character. Her journey is complete. I’m proud of it.”
